


No Tears for Me

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Butch Maria, Character Study, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Not Canon Compliant, Original Character(s), Sexual Tension, Work In Progress, blackhill - Freeform, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-01-25 23:55:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21364762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "Maria Hill. Do you know who I am?"It's green. Her eye is green and it flickers around the room in a cat-like manner, surveying everything judgmentally.Spit collects in her throat. For a split second, she doesn't know what to do. There's a fly circling her face. It lands lazily for a second on her nose and then sails onto it's next destination. The heat drowns out every single sound and makes the room feel as though it's closing in on her.Maria is snapped out of her daze by the awakening of the small AC unit jammed into one of the windows. It hums back to life, spraying out cold air and she focuses her vision back on the woman, setting her keys down on the table to her right."How do you know my name?""I know lots of things about everyone. That's my job. Answer the question. Do you know who I am?"
Relationships: Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 25
Kudos: 141





	1. From Dust You Are Born

**Author's Note:**

> okay, so listen up here. i've got like, at least 120 pages of blackhill collecting dust in a google doc. instead of paying attention to my real world responsibilities (im lookin at you, all my ap classes), i figured that i would organize and edit the pages into correrent chapters that i would post whenever i have free time (im aiming for an update a week, but we'll see). anyway, enjoy, please lmk what you think and i hope i wont disappoint!  
ps. it's super slow, im sorry for that. maria isn't even in the first chapter.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: drugs, kidnapping

She sees monsters. She doesn't kill them. She just sees them.

  
That's what all the voices around her say. "Natalia sees monsters," they whisper out in hushed tones. She's hunched on all fours, back arched. Ready to pounce. Because she sees the monsters that they don't.

  
It's a linoleum floor, cracked and stained with piss. Cigarette butts and rat poop and cocaine powder are littered about. Her fingers ghost over them sometimes, unflinching and unfaltering. She doesn't move. She never moves. If she moves, the monsters will get her.

  
She doesn't sleep. She doesn't eat unless someone throws a moldy loaf of bread at her. Her fingers grab it in a spilt second, dirty nails shaking as they tear into it at the speed of light. There's nothing human about her actions. Like a predator exposing its prey.

  
There's a water bowl in the corner. The others don't look out for her. But they would feel responsible if she died. So they put the water out. Sometimes they joke about putting her on a leash and selling her as a dog, "to get money.''

  
The nights are cold and that's when she sees the monsters the most. They appear out of the dark when the others are asleep. When she's defenseless. She never says anything. Only whimpers. She hasn't said anything since she arrived, an orphan left outside the apartment door and wrapped only in grey soot-stained rags.

  
Snowflakes fall through the broken glass window, melting on her clothes. There's a storm going on outside, dull blue light filtering in and reflecting off the grey cement walls.  
Sometimes she will nod off and wake up shivering, soaked to the bone. Her hair is as red as a January ember but she wouldn't know. It's always dirty.  
She doesn't hear the yelling from the stairwell. Or the pounding on the door. The others hear. They jump out the window. No one takes her with them. They don't care enough.  
The men break the door down. Gunshots erupt as they shoot the remaining stragglers. There's no fight. Cocaine addicts who are almost as delusional as her. Almost as high, but they don't see the monsters.

  
They almost overlook her. A girl, only skin and bones, rocking up and down in the corner. But the last one. A tall, broad man named Ivan. He's got a daughter at home. He scoops her up in his arms. She doesn't protest. Doesn't scream, doesn't fight. Doesn't acknowledge him.

  
Ivan takes her home in the blizzard, the snow hitting his face with such a force that they are like tiny bullets. He doesn't own a car so they wait for the bus under the plastic awning of the stop. It provides barely any shelter so he slings his coat over her body as a shield against the cold and pelleting of the snow. Her head is under his chin and he knows that he shouldn't get attached, but she reminds him so much of his young daughter. Of course he does.

  
When Ivan arrives, cradling her like a newborn babe just brought home from the hospital, his wife gives the girl a bath and slowly feeds her warm soup in their daughter's bed. The daughter watches, eyes wide with curiosity at the strange girl who is buried under layers of covers. She's asleep. Sometimes she cries. Just names. Names of people she used to know, disappearing until they are no more than a memory. Later on, they'll flash through her mind sometimes, bodies faded like mist and not quite tangible enough to grasp. They are simply concepts, representing the vague outline of a person. She'll wonder if they were from a dream, and then promptly forget their existence.

  
She wakes after 3 days and 3 nights. The storm is over, sunlight streaming in through yellowed curtains in the green wallpapered room.  
Her eyes flutter and she sits up. They're a light green, enhanced by the light nature of the room and reflecting everything she sees.

"Natalia. My name is Natalia Romanova"

  
She falls back asleep, and doesn't wake for another day.

  
When Natalia does wake, for real, she's silent at first. Her movements across the floor are light and she'll creep through the halls at night and steal food from the pantry and refuse the food that they feed her. She won't make eye contact with any of them. She still sees the monsters even though Ivan always races to comfort her, no matter the hour of night. Her screams are loud and piercing and they make small Yelena cry at first, before she can understand anything that's going on.

Eventually, though, the monsters leave. She starts to speak. Small things, like

"Can you please pass the salt?"

Or

"I have to use the bathroom."

She never, ever speaks of her past. Why she ended up in a drug den. How long she stayed there. Where her family is. If they're even alive. Ivan doesn't ask. His wife, Nina, doesn't ask. Little Yelena doesn't ask.

"You're my daughter now," Ivan says a bit gruffly, ruffling Natalia's hair while she munches on a piece of bread before school in morning. Nina nods in agreement. She's a quiet woman but she buys Natalia a school uniform and books and always makes sure she has food and is warm at night. That's her way of telling Natalia she's part of the family.

And Yelena? Yelena idolizes Natalia. Natalia is Yelena's senior by two years, around five while little Yelena is still three. She looks up to and mimics everything Natalia does. They're always together and can never be found apart. Not even at night, when they tell stories in bed even though they should be sleeping.

***

When the girls grow older, Ivan teaches them to fight.

"Our country is very unstable. Who knows what will happen. You should always know how to defend yourself."

He's lucky. Yelena and Natalia are natural born fighters. Natalia is nine now and she's beginning to gain strength in her arms and legs that she didn't have before. But she always goes easy on Yelena. The girl is still young but determination always flashes through her eyes, blonde braid becoming un-tucked as she dodges lunch after punch. Even when she gets a bruise or cut or falls down she always picks herself up, wipes the blood away, and launches herself full force at Natalia until she tackles her to the ground.

Ivan couldn't know this, and it certainly wasn't his fault, but teaching the girls to fight was his own undoing. Someone sees. Someone important who is affiliated with a government program dedicated to turning young girls into vicious, malicious assassins sees. And he's very, very impressed with their skills. He finds out more about them. Their school test scores are above average. Their bond is inseparable. Natalia's history is a bit shady but he likes shady. Shady is an excellent motivator to kill. The more information that he gathers, the more becomes convinced that these two girls are the perfect candidates. Until-

It happens in the middle of the night. Natalia and Yelena are asleep in their respective beds, in their respective corner of the room, when the loud BOOM-! goes off and shakes the floor of the building, sending the chairs and books and rugs and whatever else is currently residing on the floor- including the old wooden floorboards, they're not safe as well- flying into the air. The next is the light. The warm, orange light from the fire that starts growing, rapidly consuming everything in its path.

Yelena is the first to wake, eyes widening as she stares at fire in the hallway outside their room.

"Natalia! Natalia you have to get up, look!" She starts yelling, shaking Natasha desperately as she starts to bounce up and down. The product of pure anxiety and adrenaline running through her seven-year-old veins.

Natalia cracks an eye open, and upon seeing Yelena's panicked face, she immediately shoots straight up, tosses the covers off her legs, and slides off the bed, hands gripping her little sister's shoulders.

"What is it, Yel? What?"

"Nat, we have to leave now! There's a fire!"

Yelena points right outside the hallway and Natasha immediately draws back in surprise, her heart starting to beat outside of her rib cage and hands shaking uncontrollably. Not that she would have noticed. She was too busy trying to formulate a plan of escape.

"Mama and Papa, we have to get them-"

There's no time for Natalia to finish her thought. Gloved hands, thick gloved hands grab her from behind and restrain her by putting her in a neck hold. They stick a black blindfold over her eyes and a rag soaked with something sweet over her mouth. She's not stupid and neither is Yelena, they both know that they're being drugged. Natalia holds her breath as she struggles to fight against her opponent, her still-young body is no match for adults and the wounds she inflicts are no more then an ant stepping on the toe of an elephant. She feels her wrists being bound with rope, and she struggles even more, twisting and turning her body as she tries to kick her opponents leg and abdomen.

Yelena tries as well, but it's no use. Once the girls are bound, they're thrown straight into the fire. Straight into the glowing, flickering, dancing, crackling, boiling, flames of the fire. The fire that has stripped them of their whole lives, their whole identities, person-hood, family, and future in a split second.

For Natasha and Yelena, nothing will ever be the same again.


	2. First Encounter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dear friend who knows me irl and also knows that this is my account,  
please don't read this chapter.  
sincerely,  
me.

Sonoran Desert, Arizona, 2006

The room is painted a tacky version of desert red, but that's overridden by the yellow from the buzzing fluorescent light mounted on the peeling ceiling. There's a woman lying shirtless on Maria's bed. She just stares at her, room key still in hand, military uniform on and dust-stained. 

"He-hello?" She thinks for a second that the woman might be dead, but then she opens one eye. 

"Maria Hill. Do you know who I am?" 

It's green. Her eye is green and it flickers around the room in a cat-like manner, surveying everything judgmentally. 

Spit collects in her throat. For a split second, she doesn't know what to do. There's a fly circling her face. It lands lazily for a second on her nose and then sails onto it's next destination. The heat drowns out every single sound and makes the room feel as though it's closing in on her. 

Maria is snapped out of her daze by the awakening of the small AC unit jammed into one of the windows. It hums back to life, spraying out cold air and she focuses her vision back on the woman, setting her keys down on the table to her right. 

"How do you know my name?" "I know lots of things about everyone. That's my job. Answer the question. Do you know who I am?" 

Maria pauses and takes a better look at her. She's got long red hair and chapped lips from the desert air. Her eyelashes are long and her eyebrows are thin and sharp. There are bruises covering her face, purple and black and blue blots marring her pale skin. Maria also detects dried blood on her face as well, but it's spotted pattern makes it very unlikely to be hers and is probably the product of someone else getting the shit beat out of them. Her first thought is abuse; a conclusion arrived at after drawing up painful memories of her own. (In the corner of her mind, she sees a twelve year old Maria; eyeing her own reflection fearfully after a particularly bad beating). It strikes a chord of sympathy in her heart, so she's especially surprised by what she sees next.

Her eyes ghost over the woman's naked chest and she tries not stare, but then she notices a red circle under the woman's right breast. She's skinny enough for her ribs to pop through and whenever she inhales they become even more defined. Maria figures that she must also have some muscles as well, something about her demeanor suggests that she could beat Maria up in a fight.

"Is that?"

"A bullet wound? Yes, it is. Do you know me?"

"I-"

Maria runs her eyes up and down the woman's body one more time. She's young, maybe around Maria's age but she's got a kind of hardened, no-nonsense attitude. Maria can respect that. There's something that also feels familiar about her face, and it pulls at the back of Maria's mind but she ignores it, unable to pin point the exact rationale for her emotions

"No," she says, and the other woman exhales.

"Good. Patch me up."

"Wait, you're not even going to tell me your name? And I don't really know how to take care of a bullet wound, you should really go to the hospital. I could probably get you an ambulance if I-"

"You don't need to know my name. You won't ever learn it. I'm a ghost," the woman says, cutting Maria's slightly nervous rambling off. "As for the bullet wound, I will tell you what to do. I won't die. I promise." She adds this with a small sparkle in her eyes.

Maria stares at her for a second, trying to find out if the woman actually is a ghost. Her heart is beating in her chest and her hands are shaking. 

"What are you waiting for? You do have a first aid kit, don't you?" The woman smiles slightly, adding a playful tone to her voice. Maria just stares at her once more, eyebrows creased with the multitude of questions brewing beneath her surface. Then she shakes her head and shrugs, turning into the closet where she keeps her medical kit. She's not even technically supposed to use it unless of an injury on the battlefield.

After grabbing two painkillers, tweezers, a needle and thread, and gauze with a powder that promotes clotting, she returns and kneels beside the woman on the bed. The woman shifts her position so Maria can access her easily, arching her back slightly and making Maria's face heart up. 

"Look," Maria starts, taking a deep breath. "I don't know who you are. If my superiors found out about this, I don't know what would happen, but it wouldn't be good. And you don't seem like the type of person who would want to publicize this anyway. So I trust you won't mention this to anyone?"

The woman lets out a low chuckle. "I won't say a word." 

Maria shifts nervously, turning on the lamp beside her to get a better view of the bullet wound.

"I got you some pain killers but you're not addicted to them, right? Or allergic? I wouldn't want you to die."

"That's thoughtful. Some people do wish I would." 

Maria is unsure if she should laugh or not, so she lets out an awkward and nervous "ha", clearing her throat after. 

"Yeah, I got that impression."

She learns forward, examining in the bullet wound. It's lodged in between her 4th and 5th ribs, but it doesn't seem to be deep or interfering with her lung.

"You got lucky. This thing could have punctured your lung."

"Rarely ever am I lucky."

Maria laughs again. "Are you always this funny, or is it just the shock?"

The other woman shrugs. "It's probably the shock."

Maria looks over at her med kit and grabs sterile alcohol pads along with her pair of tweezers. She rips open the alcohol pad and rubs it smoothly along the woman's skin. It prickles with goosebumps afterward. 

"Okay, I've sterilized the wound. Now what?"

"All your other tools are sterilized as well, I trust?"

Maria nods. "Like I said, I'm trying to keep you from dying, not encourage it."

"Then you're going to take the scalpel, cut a small X on top of the wound. Just deep enough to break the skin. After that, you take the tweezers, pull the bullet out, and press pads over the wound until the bleeding calms down."

"Sounds easy," Maria says, grabbing the scalpel. "You ready?"

The woman nods her head, eyes already pinched shut. 

She cuts the "X" with ease and blood comes pouring out, obscuring her view of the wound prematurely and really making her wish that she had gloves. She then grabs her tweezers and inserts them into the woman's skin- quickly, deftly, and hopefully painlessly. The tweezers latch onto the bullet, and she maneuvers it out of the other woman's body, breaking her skin even more to pull it our. 

"Done." She exhales.

Blood has already started to flow from the wound in excessive amounts, so Maria grabs a couple of gauze prep pads pre-sprinkled with the anti-hemorrhagic powder and puts them on the woman's skin, making sure to apply ample pressure.

"Thanks."

"No problem. I'm always happy to help the strange woman who knows my name and broke into my hotel room."

"Sorry. I can leave now.”

“Wait,” Maria says, before she can even think about it. “You can't leave. I just pulled a bullet out of your body. Besides,” she says, continuing, “You’re still bleeding and I haven’t had time to give you stitches or bandage the wound. You should stay at least stay overnight.”

The woman raises an eyebrow at Maria, questioningly.

“I’m getting the whole treatment tonight, aren’t I?”

“Yes, well,” Maria says, pulling back a bit as she realizes what she just said. “I just don’t want you to die tonight,” she adds, as a justification for her invitation. Her heart starts to race again and her face heats up, even though she knows that there is absolutely no reason to believe that anything would happen between her and this mysterious redhead.

The other woman laughs and Maria reaches for the needle and thread to give her stitches. She wipes them both with an alcohol prep pad and does the same for the redhead’s wound, noticing that she winces slightly at the stinging of the alcohol.

“Hold still. No more laughing now. I know that I’m funny, but you’re going to have to ignore me for a minute.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard, I noticed that I’m- ow!”

“Told you to hold still,” Maria replies, eyes focused on tying the first stitch.

“No, you poked me on purpose because I was about to insult you!”

“Not true.” She’s still steady has all attention on the task at hand, but she can’t help but wonder where all this ease between the two of them came from. If she was a stranger, observing this conversation at a distance, she would have thought that they had been friends for years. Not that Maria isn’t good at conversation, but it’s hard to talk to people that you’ve just met. Especially if that stranger is a topless (and attractive) woman who mysteriously appeared in your hotel room at night.

She ties the last stitch and reaches into the med kit for the last time to grab a gauze pad, medical tape, and an ace bandage. She tapes the gauze over the wound and then wraps the ace bandage around the woman’s chest. Not too tightly so she can’t breathe, but tight enough that it protects the gauze. The woman arches her back every time that Maria has to bring the gauze around to her front, and she’s acutely aware of how her hands have started to shake. She hopes that the redhead hasn’t noticed, but she figures that she has.

“Now you’re done,” she says, digging the two painkillers out of her pocket. "One at a time."

"Thanks," the woman says, getting up. Maria watches as her face contorts in pain and she quickly rushes to the woman's side, putting her left arm around her back and offering her her right hand.

"You really shouldn't be get-"

"I'll be fine," the other woman counters before Maria even has time to make her full point. "Could you just take me to the bathroom, please?"

"Of course," she responds with, murmuring. Maria feels the woman's soft skin rubbing against hers, and hears her labored breathing escaping her mouth. Her right hand tightens against Maria's, so she shifts her position in order to offer more support.

When they reach the bathroom, Maria flips the switch and the light slowly flickers to life, less harsh in hue and intensity as the other light. It offers a pale florescent blue in contrast to the harsh yellow.

She turns on the tap water and finds one of those small complementary paper cups that are always offered at motels fills it with water, and hands it to the woman. The redhead's fingers linger over Maria's for a split second too long, sending charged electricity through her spine in the form of a shiver, and making her core heat up.

There's a comfortable silence that has befallen the two of them, either brought upon by the heat or their strange, inexplicable intimacy. The woman continues to drink the water even after she's taken the painkiller, and Maria is happy to watch and observe.

She takes her eyes off the woman for a second to sweep the room but instead finds herself staring at their reflections. The woman's skin has turned a creamy white under this new light, with red bags under her eyes. Her nipples are taunt even though it's hot. Maria looks at her black eyes and the woman's light green ones, her short brown hair and the woman's long, wavy red hair, and her skin, tan and rough and damaged by the sun. And she sees her face, too- a young face, hardened by harsh winters and hot summers, with her eyes wide with a mix of emotions- mostly fear and excitement and curiosity, all combined into one beautiful expression. There's such a strong juxtaposition and something so strangely personal about this comparison that causes Maria to shiver once again.

The woman must sense this because she stops drinking her water.

"Hey." It comes out soft, a one syllable exhale. 

The woman takes Maria's hand in hers. 

She learns their foreheads together, her lips ghosting over Maria's for a second before closing the distance. The first kiss is tender and sweet. The second kiss is rougher. She bites down on Maria's bottom lip and Maria isn't sure what to do so she just goes along with it, her hands pulling the woman closer together to her.

They pull away, and neither of them says a word. The other woman rests her hand on the side of Maria's face, and Maria's breathing heavily through her slightly swollen lips.

Maria feels the woman shiver against her, and she pulls her closer.

"Sorry. I'll get you a sweatshirt."

"Before you do that," the redhead replies, waging her eyebrows slightly, with what Maria doesn't doubt as a suggestive tone to her voice, "how about I keep it off for a little while longer?"

Maria's heart jumps at the opportunity, with the consequences of what could happen if she's found barely registering in her mind. She picks the woman up in her arms, surprised at her heaviness despite her small frame. 

"I would absolutely love that," she says, already leaving the bathroom and lying the woman down on the bed, her face illuminated once again by the yellow light. 

She quickly switches off the lamp, leaving the moonlight to filter in through the shades of her room and make the woman's red hair look like a flame on a candle wick. She's the most beautiful woman that Maria's ever seen in her life, and before she goes any further she draws a circle with her fingers down the woman's stomach, leaving a trail of goosebumps.

"Are you sure you want to do this? It's not the painkillers speaking, right?"

"No," the woman says, laughing. "We still have an hour before they kick in."

She arches her back up and Maria unbuckles her belt buckle, pulling her pants down. She comes back up and presses kisses right above the waistband of her pants, one hand pressed against the woman's arm and the other under her back.

The woman laughs. "Stop teasing! I don't have all night, you know."

"Mmm," Maria says, too content at the moment to care that much. But she does stop her kisses, and pulls down the woman's underwear. 

She leans forward, bringing her fingers up and letting them do all the work. 

***

They fall asleep naked, exhausted, and satisfied. Maria's hair is disheveled and her face tinted red. She's holding the smaller woman in her arms. Her head lies on the woman's chest and every time the woman exhales, it tickles Maria's neck. 

The two of them are wrapped in the white sheets of the motel bed, the fabric weaving in between a mess of tangled arms and legs. It's hard to tell where one of them starts and one ends. 

Maria shifts, mumbles a bit in her sleep. The other woman pops one eye open and looks cautiously at Maria. Once assured of her own escape, she slinks out of Maria's grasp in a deft movement that is almost unnoticeable. She takes a pillow off the floor and slips it into Maria's arms so the woman won't subconsciously realize her absence. 

She picks her underwear and pants off the floor, as well as her bloody blouse. Realizing that she can't wear the blouse, she quietly steps into the closet and carefully opens up Maria's duffel bag. Luckily for her, Maria owns a lot of bland tee shirts that are virtually untraceable. She steals a tight fitting navy blue shirt. Maria probably bought it to show off her arm muscles, she thinks with a small smirk. 

She quickly dresses and is about to head for the window to exit when something catches her attention in the corner of her eye. It's the typical pen and paper pad that most motels offer, but it causes her to hesitate for a second, eyes darting between sleeping Maria and her exit. Finally, she sighs and walks back over to it.

See you around

-N

It's not a lot, but the message with her initial and her handwriting is enough to make her uncomfortable. She's on a mission, and her identity is her most valuable form of protection. Still, she likes Maria Hill, even if she's sorry for what she's about to do to her. Most people wouldn't take the time or have the compassion to patch up a mysterious injured girl, but Maria Hill is not most people.

She runs back to her exit, sliding the old window open with both hands. She slips through and closes the window with as much ease as she opened it. As the day has left and turned to night, the heat has left and been replaced with the cold. Her exhales make steam in the night air and she shivers slightly. The desert is almost as unforgiving as Russia, she thinks to herself with a small smirk.

She climbs down the fire escape and hits the ground running through the alleyways, disappearing into the night. The only thing that she's left with of the night are Maria's t-shirt and her memories. If she wasn't Natalia Romanova, Black Widow, she might have actually felt slightly bittersweet about this parting.

But she is Natalia Romanova, Black Widow, so she feels nothing.

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sexy time haha


	3. Mind on Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update is so late lmao, im busy all the time esp since its the holidays. Also, i changed the title and summary of this fanfic. yay!

"Agent Romanova. Debrief."

"I made contact with the target."

"And?"

"She's weak," Natalia grits through her teeth. 

The eyes of the man sitting across from her glint. The room is dark, with only a single light swaying above his head. It illuminates his shiny bald head, and casts a shadow under his eyebrows and above his eyes.

"Sit down, agent. I want to know everything."

"I broke into the target's room at approximately 1830 hours. She entered at approximately 1845 hours. She appeared to be surprised and aroused at my appearance. As suspected, she showed sympathy and did not force me to leave. I instructed her to remove the bullet. She was very perceptive and appeared calm under strenuous circumstances. After she gave me stitches, I suggested that we have sex. She agreed with little to no hesitation. I left at approximately 0300 hours. She did not notice my absence."

"Good. And your personal evaluation of the target's character?"

"Target appears to be of high intelligence. Target appears to be sympathetic and selfless. Target appears to have past trauma that clouds her judgement. Target is naive. Target does not have enough military experience. As previously stated, target is weak."

"Explain."

"Target welcomed me into her hostel despite the fact that I was a stranger, showing naivety and unnecessary trustful-ness. Target used supplies from her personal medical kit to remove the bullet, showing both sympathy and risk. Those supplies would have been much more valuable on the battlefield. Target agreed to have sex with an unknown woman, showing her weakness and desperation for touch. Target was not perceptive enough to catch my absence. Target seemed unusually attached to my person, showing weakness and desperation once again."

"Excellent evaluation, Agent." The man, Dmitri, glances up and smiles at her. It's not a happy smile, the edges curved up too far and lips too tight to make it genuine. Not that Natalia cares. She's not here for smiles. She’s here to finish the debrief, leave, and go hit a punching bag because she’s strangely angry for some reason and her knuckles are thirsty, her fingers restless and arms tingling.

"Thank you, sir.” She stands up from the table, the metal legs of the chair grinding against the cement floor as it’s pushed back. She gives him a quick bow and heads toward the door when he stops her.

"Oh, one more thing agent. Does the target possesses the ability to pose a danger to the Russian Federation or persons affiliated with it?”

Natalia turns back, shifts her head, eyes glancing towards the ceiling and arms crossed as she thinks.

“No. Not now, anyway. But it’s unlikely that she will stay that way. The military is sure to realize her potential, they’ll promote her and the more information she gains against us, the more power she has. We need to intercept her before they do.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“She’s too inexperienced. She needs to be thrown into battle, have her mind twisted and pulled into different directions into everything becomes her enemy. That’s where we come in. She’s too smart right now to trust a Russian organization, but we’ll see how she feels in a year when her war memories come back to haunt her. We’ll promise a cure to her pain, in exchange for information.”

“Thank you, Natalia. In addition to evaluating Maria Hill, you will also be evaluating two other soldiers. Frederick Jones, who is currently stationed in Ukraine, and Timothy Gardener, who is currently stationed in Puerto Rico. Report to Rostov for your next assignment. Dismissed.”

***

Rostov quickly gives her the outline of her next assignment: go to Ukraine, seduce Jones, find out his strengths and weaknesses, and report back. She’s leaving in three days, which gives her the perfect amount of time to learn more about Jones.

Natalia goes to the complex’s library to find a map of Mykolaiv, Ukraine. Jones is stationed to the countryside, a bit more east and more towards Crimea. Stupid Americans, she thinks to herself, unrolling the map and marking her drop-off point with a small star on the map. Always sticking their noses where they don’t belong.

She tries to sit down and focus, eyes scanning the roads and the metro system and the bus system, the red and yellow and blue and green lines with the small letters and numbers in front of them all blending into one. Her mind, usually sharp and able to easily spot the easiest route to her destination keeps wandering. She is reminded of Maria’s hotel room, her rough skin and black eyes, the way her calloused fingers pulled a bullet of Natalia’s own body without a second thought. The way the moon shone through the room and the way that Maria held her, in such a secure way that almost tricked Natalia into a false sense of security. She almost let her guard down that night, which is the scariest part. Secret agents aren’t supposed to let their guards down. Especially not Natalia, she’s the best of the best and has had far too much conditioning done to prevent herself from becoming a security breach.

Sighing to herself, she rolls the map up. If she’s going to waste time thinking about someone she met once, she might as well go to the gym and try to refocus her brain that way.

***

The gym is not too crowded. There are some martial art instruction classes going on for the younger students, but Natalia finds a small space near the back that is dimly lit and filled with punching bags. She doesn’t box often -rarely ever, actually- but it’s a good way to relieve stress and anger. Not that Natalia feels either or those emotions frequently, she tries to avoid feeling anything most of the time in order to make rational and calculated decisions. Sentiment would just tamper with her efficiency as an assassin.

Once her fingers are dusted and wrapped, the dressing wrapped a bit too tightly and the fabric a bit too itchy, she takes her first punch. 

It’s strong and filled with force and she imagines that it’s a punch to the gut. She just punched someone in the gut, and it’s Maria Hill who she punched. Satisfied, she imagines Maria’s hurt and shocked expression when she looks up and sees that it’s Natalia who did it.

Another punch. This time to the chest. A third. To the ribs.

Her arms fly back and forth, no thought taken to her form or her speed or her accuracy. The only thing that matters right now is that she’s getting whatever the fuck this emition is out of her system.

Her!

Her, a security breach!

All because of one person!

And then she remembers the note that she left in Maria’s room as she was escaping in the middle of the night, and she punches harder, arms swinging left and right and hard flying in front of her, obscuring her vision, and she doesn’t care or feel pain because she can’t believe that she did that, compromising her identity and safety, she should have just fucked her and left her like she does with all the others, but there was something in her touch that ignited something in her that had been dead for a very long time, but now it’s here and it’s alive, so very alive, causing Natalia to doubt everything that she’s ever known, causing Natalia to doubt her training and skills and-

All because of one person.

She stops punching, leaning down with her hands on her knees and catches her breath. It feels like her brain is on fire, sights and sounds swirling together in front of her. Something in her, deep in her, hurts, but it’s not like the physical pain that she is used too. It’s different. 

***

Natalia lies in bed later that night, mind and body substantially calmer but unable to sleep nonetheless. Her right fingers run over the knuckles of her left hand, swollen, cracked, and bruised from her impromptu boxing session. In retrospect, the whole act was a bit dramatic and embarrassing. She could have just gone for a jog and would have felt just as fine, if not better (running doesn’t give you knuckle injuries) afterward.

She shifts onto her left side, eyes wandering aimlessly around the room that she shares with the twenty six other girls. They’re all asleep, bodies compressed and ready to spring into a battle position at the slightest sound or movement. Natalia assumes that’s how she must sleep, too. But that’s not how she slept with Maria. Her body was relaxed, her breathing shallow and muscles loose. She doesn’t know why Maria made her feel that way. She wishes that did.

She tries to shift her focus to the next mission. She wasted today unraveling upon herself. Tomorrow needs to better. The job needs to be done with care, thoroughly, and efficiently.

That’s how people get killed, Natalia, she tells herself.

They get distracted.

And she’s determined to succeed, no matter what the circumstances.

Even if means killing Maria Hill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha's an asshole but I'm also a slut for sexual tension, so deal with it


	4. In Uniform

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update, i'm suffering from a condition called being alive and it's a b-i-t-c-h

Maria wakes to the beeping of her alarm.

"Sorry," she grumbles to the woman sleeping next to her, as her hand slams the snooze button down. "I'm usually awake b-"

Her sentence is stopped short and she opens her eyes and sees that there's no woman next to her. 

"Hello?" She gets up out of bed, throwing the covers over and padding her barefoot feet over to the bathroom.

"Hello?" 

No response. There's no one in the bathroom either, the light flickering and buzzing to life.

"Shit!" Maria exclaims. 

"Fuck! God-damn! God, I'm such a fucking idiot. Didn't even have a name to scream during sex, did I really think that she would stay?"

She returns back to her bed. Surveys it like the scene of a crime. The covers are obscuring her investigation so she throws them onto the ground, leaving her with a loose sheet that she lifts up to see if there was anything that the woman left on the bed. Nothing. No socks that fell off during the night, her bloody clothes are gone and she didn't wear any earrings. Maria even leans over to the redhead's side of the bed, hoping to catch a whiff of perfume or body lotion or any kind of scent, even if it's B.O. or deodorant. Nothing again. The woman, it would seem, was an odorless alien. 

She sits down on the woman's side, clutching a pillow in her arms and sandwiching herself between the headboard and the wall. 

There are tears welling up in her eyes and she tries so hard to hold them back, but they fight their way through and fall down her cheeks onto the pillow, her chest heaving silently as she tries to muffle her sobs.

"Couldn't get into fucking West Point, can't keep a girl for even one full night, and I'm stuck out here in this hot as balls desert, Jesus-fucking-Christ, I hate this place!"

Maria leans her head back. Tries to focus on one water-stained spot in the ceiling. She needs to report for breakfast soon. Her body is telling her not to do it. Just stay here, wrapped in your own misery, and get kicked out of the Marines. It's the easiest path, the way out that she's been looking for. But then she thinks about pulling up to her father's two bedroom ramshackle house in the suburbs of Detroit in her 1990 Honda civic with the bumper that's falling off. 

"I knew you couldn't do it. Good for nothing piece of shit. Now make me breakfast." And then he would flash her that evil grin, the same grin he always gave her when he was about to beat the shit out of her after coming home drunk at 1 am in the morning. 

God, how she hated that smile. His teeth were yellow and misshapen and crooked and he was missing two from a fistfight that he got into years ago. The corners of his mouth would extend so far that his lips would become transparent and thin, his teeth perfectly lined up the resemble the smile of an alligator before it eats it's prey.

She shivers just thinking about his smile. She can't go home and face that.

So, what does Maria Hill, failure of most things with an abusive alcoholic father do? She gets up. She throws that pillow against the wall and gives it finger. She takes a cold shower, as cold as it can get but still not cold enough to erase the memories of the redhead sucking on her collarbone in the middle of the night. There's a small bruise that was left, she notices, water dripping over her body and causing goosebumps in the dark hotel shower, but her uniform will hide that.

Her uniform. God, Maria Hill loves a good uniform. She loves what it symbolizes. It's a mask. It hides personal information- be it hickeys, cuts, scars and cracked ribs under the guise of teamwork and loyalty. No one cares who you are on the front line, they just care about what you're doing. She wishes that she had a uniform when she went to school. It would have been a lot easier to hide the rashes that her dad's belt left on her.

The Marines uniform is an excellent one. The olive green shirt compliment's Maria's skin tone perfectly, and sure enough, the bruise has all but disappeared. 

Just as Maria is about to leave, she stops herself and looks at her reflection in the mirror. She doesn't look too hard -not hard enough to notice all her imperfections and flaws and asymmetrical features, like how her one eye is a different shape than the other one- just hard enough to make sure that she looks clean. One of her brown strands of hair has fallen into her face, so she wets her finger using the rust-colored water from the tap and pushes it back. The Marines expect a level of personal grooming, and Maria doesn't anticipate violating the rule. Even if she broke about fifty others last night.

(Even if she had sex with an unknown woman in her hotel room).

She pauses briefly, just enough to catch the dark circles under her sunken eyes before taking a deep breath, her fingers closing in on the doorknob and turning it, entering the hallway. Ready to face the day.

***

The day is a long and hot one. Lots of training exercises that involve running up sand dunes. Those are Maria's least favorites. Her feet kick and throw in all different directions, the person in front of her spraying sand into her eyes and mouth, and no matter how hard or quick she approaches the angle, she always ends up falling back to the base again. It's the same feeling that she gets in a dream when a monster is chasing her and she can't move, or when her dad's shadow would fall over her, belt in hand and ready to-

"Private Hill! Get up off the ground!"

"Sir, yes sir!" She responds, scrambling up and spitting a few grains out of her mouth as she subconsciously straightens her back and spreads her legs shoulder width apart.

"Is this nap time private? Is this what you think it is?"

"No sir!"

"Then why were you on the ground?"

"I fell, sir!"

"Drop down and give me 50. And don't fall again, private!"

"Sir yes sir!"

Fuck.

***

Maria's body is tired. She's swallowed so much sand that she can feel the vomit already making it's way up her throat.

Just keep going. Keep moving. Think about how much your father wants to see you fail.

She slowly lowers herself into the desk chair in her hotel room, bones sore from the push-ups and training exercise in general. It's hot. She thinks that maybe the air conditioning is broken. Or maybe she's just got heat exhaustion. No matter, she looks forward to an ice bath tonight.

There's a note on top of the desk that she hadn't seen before. At first, she thinks that it must be left by housekeeping in response to the mess of blankets that she left on the floor. But it's not. It's written by the redhead, in her swooping, curly cursive. And now Maria knows something, her heart skipping in her throat and her hand shaking as she holds the note up. The woman's name starts with N!

N. It has a nice ring to it.

N.


	5. Killing Maria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I BET U THOUGHT THAT YOUD SEEN THE LAST OF ME

Natalia wakes sharply, her body bolting up and out of bed as soon as the alarm is rung to wake her and the rest of the girls up. It only takes a second for the memories of the past two days to come flooding back to her, and while at first she is filled with a warm, soft emotion as Maria's face and her concerned eyes flash before her mind, it quickly morphs into anger as she recalls the cold darkness of the interrogation room and the musk of the gym as she beat the punching bag. And of course, the resolution that she made to herself before she fell asleep.

Maria must die, she's still sure of it. No one compromises the Black Widow without paying for it.

As such, breakfast is a morbid affair. Natalia eats her eggs surrounded by silence and she can't help but peer around the room a bit, nonchalantly staring at the other Widows. She knows more about Maria than they know about each other, she realizes. And she finds herself liking the open aura that Maria exuded. Natalia wouldn't trust these other girls with her secrets (although before two days ago she had no secrets, but now she has one). 

Quickly dismissing the thought of Maria, she pushes it down inside her. She wasn't meant to know or like her fellow Widows. The sooner that she goes down to top brass, explains her situation, the better. The whole thing will be over soon, she will stop comparing her life with the few short moments that she spent with Maria, and she can go back to performing her job normally and without fear.

***

"So, you want Maria Hill killed?"

"Yes," Natalia responds, shifting a bit in her chair but trying not to make it an uncomfortable shift. She tries her best to remain calm, slow her racing heart that is pounding in her ears and making her fingers shake, but she's hiding that but folding her hands together on her lap.

"Your evaluation here, done just yesterday, recommended her as an asset just yesterday. If we kill her, we'll loose a highly promising candidate for the new Super Soldier Program."

"I understand," Natalia carefully dictates. "But I think that she knows too much. I was thinking about the events of my mission after debriefing, and I remembered that as I was spying on her before my mission started, she was warned about Russian operatives infiltrating the United States military."

It's a silly excuse, and Natalia knows it. She tries not to act as though it is a silly excuse, but it beat out all her other reasons- ranging from "I accidentally spoke in Russian," to "I left part of my uniform in her hotel room- the Black Widow insignia part". Both of those would probably get her killed in the process too. This excuse? Less likely.

"Did anything in her demeanor suggest that she was suspicious of your political and organizational affiliations?" The man sitting in front of her, a highly decorated military figure doning a pair of thin wire framed glasses, narrows his eyes. He unclasps his hands and his bony fingers with their yellow nails ghost over countless files spread across his desk, before settling on Maria's, and, squinting slightly, he holds it up so the light from the rising some will illuminate it. Natalia's breath catches in her throat as she sneaks a glance at the subject in question's photo. It's her military photo, American flag in the background as she looks at the camera with a dead serious expression. It's not the Maria that Natalia knew but even just the sight of her is enough to create the strange feeling in Natalia's stomach.

"When I was using her bathroom, she slipped out for a moment to go to the front desk of the hotel and get some aspirins. She came back with them, but I now have reason to suspect that she was also warning her superiors of my presence. She seemed to be gone longer than just a short trip and when she returned, something in her demeanor had changed. She was a bit more on edge."

"Hmm..." The man murmurs, still holding up the file as he takes on hand and rubs it over his mustache. 

"The behavior that you exhibited was careless. You should have reported this situation in debrief. This level of, for lack of a better word -unperceptivity- is unacceptable for an agent your level. You can accept some form of punishment, the specifics of which I will discuss with other members of the Committee for the Management of Special Organizations. I will also discuss the situation involving Private Hill with the other members, and we will come to a decision together. Please anticipate both our conclusions in the following days."

Natasha bows her head at the man (whose name she never learned, not because he never told her but because she was so nervous coming to top brass).

"Thank you," She tells him. He returns her head bow.

"Dismissed."

***

The decision comes at dinner the next night. Natalia hasn't slept well since reporting Maria and her body is also sore from a training session she did yesterday evening in an attempt to take her mind off the matter. She's fighting the urge to fall asleep and a muscle that she pulled in her calf is screaming out in pain, but regardless, the assistant who places the letter by her side catches her in the act of aggressively chomping on green beans to drown out her sorrows.

Natalia quickly snatches up the envelope, barely even caring if the other girls catch her in the middle of her emotional act. Her trembling fingers rip it open, and a yellowed piece of paper falls out, indented from the letters that the typewriter punched onto it.

She breathes a sigh of relief.

They've decided to kill Maria Hill. 

Natalia doesn't even care about her punishment- thirty hours of classes in perception and no missions until she's completed the classes, which is fine- she's just so glad that soon, she won't have to worry about the brunette fucking with her head anymore. She won't want to touch herself in the shower anymore with Maria's name falling off her lips like the drops from the shower do, plopping off the curvature of her chin and swimming in the whirlpool before being sucked into the drain, or how she stares at the bright moon through the windows in her room at night when she can't sleep like she used to, and she'll wonder if Maria is staring at the same moon, is she touching herself and whispering Natalia's name? But then she remembers that she never even gave Maria her name, and a part of her body feels so heavy because she almost wishes that she did.

A part of her wishes for the first time in her life that she was normal. Her whole life has been about following orders without ever thinking or feeling and now that she feels these emotions that Maria lit inside her, she never wants to stop feeling them. Some are good and some are bad but she knows that she's alive and she's suddenly aware of the world that she's stuck inside. She doesn't want to eat breakfast in silence surrounded by girls who she's grown up with but knows nothing about and she's killed their friends and they've killed about hers (a small sob catches in her throat as she remembers her sister Yelena, whom she had forgotten for so many years but only recently remembered).

***

She is lying bed again when it hits her.

She doesn't want Maria to die.

She wants her to live.

And she wants to be with her.

Her heart is pounding once again as she shifts around until she's lying on her back, spread out like a starfish and as vulnerable as she can imagine, her body open to all kind of attacks. 

"I will come back for you, Maria. I won't let you die."

I am going to escape.


	6. Saving Maria?

It's a dark and moonless night when Natalia escapes. She's done her research, all of it, prepared for more thouroughly than any previous mission, with her extensive research hidden behind a loose cinderblock in the wall of the west wing bathroom. She would access it at night, pulling the manila folder out from the dusty space, mulling over terrain maps and guard formations while hidden behind a bathroom stall, her fingernails ghosting over her lips as her brows furrowed, trying to commit the images to memory. Other documents were printed out from various databases that Natasha hacked into, disabling both the Room's security protocols as well as the United States Goverment one. Those were a bit more security sensative and Natalia stored them on her at all time, folded up in a small square and then pressed into a gun holster which she only took off at night.

Natalia learns that they've moved Maria to the East Coast, she's gotten a few promotions within a surprisingly short time frame- five months, has it reall been five months since Natalia laid eyes on Maria?- but then again, Natalia feels a small rush of pride surge from her chest as her predictions about Maria are affirmed. The woman is indeed prime military material, with her athletic build, intellegence, and determination. Natalia hopes that those same qualities will protect the both of them when they are on the run. Which, of course, Natalia really wants to aviod but of course anticipates that it will happen.

As she's running through the complex, Natalia eyes the wall which separates the campus from the surrounding woods approaching. It's not her goal to scale the wall, but rather, she needs break into a garage storing jets which is located near the wall. Her eyes squint in the absolute dark of the night, and yes, she did choose a night with a new moon to hide any movements that would otherwise be illuminated. The obscurity is both a blessing and a curse, and she curses slightly to herself as her feet stumble over and overgrown tree root. 

The shed quickly appears in the corner of her eye, and Natalia quickens her pace, still a bit of casual jog but a bit more spring and adrenline in it as Natalia's heart speeds up over the realization that her plan is becoming actualized. She's never been a ruler breaker per se, maybe a bit rebellious here and there but this certainly tops any previous scheme that she's ever tried to pull off. For some reason, Natalia thought that she would be a bit sad on the night that she left, fully aware that she would not be welcome back into the Room and accepted as full fleged Widow ever again. However, the loss of her title and classmates that she has grown and matured with does not strike her as tragically as she thought it would. There is a small sadness taking root in her heart, but it is overtaken by a strange exciment that Natalia cannot fully grasp, nor understand, nor control. 

Her exhales are illuminated in the garage, where there's a bit more lighting- soft glows coming from laterns mounted on the wall. Natalia has disabled thelive security feed from this location and replaced it with loop footage which she recored a few weeks ago, but she still moves quickly, jogging to the jet that she picked and secretively filled up with fuel the other night. There's a lock on it but Natalia picks it relativley quickly, her usual methadical movements a bit less careful in the wake of her enthusiasm.

As soon as she's in the jet, system overriden and multiple private networks set up which both block her location as well as disable any Room applications which might be used to track and or communicate with her. She plugs in the coordinates to a field near Maria, just far enough away to ensure a discret landing but close enough that she'll have easy access to the vehicle should an emergency arise. 

Leaning back into her seat and manuvering the jet through the opened garage doors, speeding over the runway with the thrust of the accelerators, watching the speedometer reach 200 kmh before finally lifting the craft up into the air, Natalia is pushed back for a second before re-orienting herself, before leaning forward and straining her neck out the right hand window to get one final of the Red Room complex.

Surrounded in snow, it's an obscure five story building with a circle at the center, and then four wings sprouting out from it. The lights are now being turned on, sirens blaring red as the guards realize that someone just took off with an aircraft in the middle of the night. Natalia smiles slightly to herself, thinking about how tommorrow lockers will be searched, Widows and students counted and interogated, generals stressed as they prepare and emergecy briefing for other miltary higher-ups who will want to know exactly how one of their own managed to escaped.

"What?" Natalia murmurs to herself, laughing slightly in relief. "It's not as though they made it hard. They gave me every single skill I would ever need to escape. They just never expected me to use it against them."

She pushes the accelerator forward, speeding even further away from the sun, which is rising in the sky. She can relax for now, secure in her temporary safety, which, no matter how temporary, is a comfort and luxery that Natalia never thought she'd experience. Her body warms at the thought of seeing Maria, and while saving her life is a race against time- and Natalia suspects that as soon as they realie that it's her who has escaped, they will immediatly target the woman- Natalia cannot wait to be reunited with her.

***

Maria sighs, rolling over onto the other side of the bed. The woman from the bar- whose name she couldn't even remember, she was in such a hurry to take someone home, anyone whose prescence would erase the memory of Maria's fourty billion encounters with women from bars from her mind- had left hours earlier, grabing her clothes after picking up a cell phone call from her husband that their kid had the stomach flu. 

"I'll call you," She whispered, pulling her dress over her legs. Maria gave the woman a half hearted smile, secretly hoping that she wouldn't, because while Maria is not enough of a gentlewoman to see her out or help her get dressed, she is enough of a gentlewoman to not condone cheating. That blonde was just another bored straight (?) woman in an unfulling hetersexual marriage with a man who probably hit her at night, and boy, Maria had enough experience with abusive men that she was perfectly content to stay away from that shit show. 

"Who even answers their phone right after sex? I am really that bad?" She wonders aloud, not afraid of anyone overhearing- that's the advantage of this promotion, Maria now has her own house instead of some shitty hotel room, deep in the woods of- fuck, what state is she even in now? Maine? Does the army even have bases in Maine? Well, they must, because Maria is pretty sure that she's in it, judging from the thick, woodsy trees that adjourn her house.

Normally, Maria would be more self aware, but she's just been transfered from base to base to base after recieving one promotion after another.They all happened so quickly that Maria was a bit disbeliefing at first, staring at each new medal with a sense of doubt mixed with awe in her mind, unsure of what to do. It was all a coverup for the shitshow mission that was Mandripoor, where Maria was the only member of her platoon to make it out alive. She still wakes up from nightmares of it, spitting out invisiable sand grains from the desert, coughing until she spits out blood.

For some reason, the army must have known that Maria wanted to quit after Mandripoor, but it's a lot harder to quit after recieving a million promotions. Maria had never seriously imagined a career for herself in it, whenever she talked about it with friends she always approached the subject as, "This is something that I'm doing to earn some money beore I figure out what my true passion is". It seemed, however, that Maria's intentions had changed, and she now felt a serious commitment to the army. She supposes that it what a therapist would call "trauma bonding" but Maria just calls it "a shitshow, maybe bribery".

Sighing, Maria shifts in her bed before tensing up as she swears that she hears footsteps outside of her room. Her breathing goes shallow and quiet as she cranes her head, sticking her ear out in the direction of the door, biting her lips before going into full panic mode as she hears the footsteps move again. It could be the woman from earlier but Maria doesn't know why she would be back after all this time (unless Maria is actually really good in bed, so good that this woman absolutely needs round two night nnow). But as her doorknob starts to jingle Maria jumps up, throwing her pillow forward as she grabs the glock out from under it, gripping it tightly, her knuckles white and her breathing heavy, stance tense, eyes wide, aiming towards the door.

***

Natalia fiddles with the doorknob for a second, before realizing that it's unlocked. She opens it slowly, trying to make absolutely no sound as she creeps into what she presumes to be Maria's bedroom. And finds herself staring down the barrel of a glock.

***

A redhead, her face familiar, enters Maria's room. 

"Stay there or I'll-" 

The other woman looks up, calm under the prescence of a gun. She stares straight into Maria's eyes, and as Maria looks back, her eyes ghosting over the other woman's green ones, she knows where she rememebers her from.

"You're- you're the woman from-"

***

"Yes," Natalia replies, stepping forward and disarming Maria in one second, dropping the gun onto the ground with a satisifed thud. It's not as though the other woman put up a fight, though, her arms limp with shock.

***

"My name is Natalia."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> read through this chapter and i realized its pretty evident that im not a native english speaker from my word choice and numerous spelling errors. whatever, too tired to fix it, hugs and kisses xoxo! i hope that everyone is safe and happy and thank you to the small few who are enjoying this! i certainly am having fun <3


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